The nursing home sent an email to families Wednesday that might as well have been attached to a live grenade.
Total Center Census: 101
Number of Residents Symptomatic and on Center Watch-List: 80
Number of COVID Residents in the Center and Hospital: 13
Residents with COVID test pending results: 2
Total Number of deaths: 33
Total Number of deaths with COVID diagnosis: 19
Dan Martel said he and his siblings quickly deduced their 78-year-old mother was one of only six seemingly healthy residents left at Atrium Post Acute Care at Park Ridge.
And with nearly 60 employees sidelined with respiratory symptoms and 25 with confirmed COVID-19, according to the email, Claudia Martel’s family is petrified Atrium won’t be able to protect her from the coronavirus.
“I don’t really think there is a plan,” said Dan Martel, the oldest of Claudia’s three sons. “The nurses and the aides, these poor people are left to their own devices. They are stressed beyond belief.”
The Martels want the facility to ask the state to help recruit nurses and aides for the exhausted and frightened staff who are working as hard as they possibly can but are dwindling in number. And they want their questions answered, not just through terse emails and one-sided conference calls with administrators.
“We haven’t seen sympathy and compassion for those who have died, and that is horrible,” he said.
A staffing shortage appears to be driving a decision behind moving symptomatic and COVID-19 positive residents onto the same floor as their mother, Martel said. Less than a month ago, there were 144 residents on three floors; now the entire first floor is empty, he said.
“It’s ridiculous they would send something so alarming — that they are moving people — and when you call to talk to someone about it, they do not pick up” the phone, he said.
The family has since learned their mother is down the hall from infected patients, and for the moment in a room by herself, he said. But that may change if space was tight, he added.
Yesterday, a nurse told Martel’s mother two people on her floor had died. “She called us in a state of complete panic at almost midnight, hysterically crying,” he said.
Atrium Health & Senior Living spokeswoman Hope Horwitz did not specifically address questions raised by the Martel family. But in a statement Friday, Horwitz said the company is “as concerned as everyone for the health, safety and well-being of our patients, residents, staff and the entire community.”
“We are extremely proud of the Atrium associates who fight like soldiers every day for the health and wellbeing of our patients and residents,” Horwitz said.
Atrium long-term care properties, owned by Spring Hills Senior Communities in 2019, are accepting outside COVID-19 patients and creating separate units in other facilities. About a dozen Park Ridge residents were transferred to an Atrium facility in Woodbury, The Courier-Post reported on April 7.
Horwitz also clarified how many residents of Atrium Post Acute Care of Park Ridge died from the coronavirus. “There are currently 8 COVID-19 positive cases in the facility. There have been 19 total deaths due to COVID-19,” her statement said.
Claire Collins, 87, died of what her family suspects was COVID-19 at Atrium Post Acute Care of Park Ridge on April 6. Her daughter wanted her mother tested, even in death, so her mother is counted among the victims of the virus.
Catherine Collins-Mullen said her 87-year-old mother, Claire Collins, died at Park Ridge on April 6. But she’s not counted among the 19 fatalities attributed to the deadly virus, even though she heard and saw her mother exhibiting a cough and difficulty breathing.
The facility never tested her because they told her there weren’t enough tests, Collins-Mullen said.
The night she died, Atrium sent an email with the regular rundown on COVID-19 statistics but there was no mention of any new deaths, Collins Mullen said. “I thought, are you not counting my mother because you didn’t test her? That’s a big concern.”
“They said she died peacefully. We don’t know. That’s the most heartbreaking thing,” she said.
The state suspended visiting privileges at nursing homes a month ago. But thanks to her mother’s social worker, Amanda Alvarez, the family had multiple phone and zoom visits in the days before Claire died. Holding up signs saying, “We love you, mom” and “Thank you Atrium staff,” Collins-Mullen said she, her son and her sister also stood outside in the rain and talking on the phone to her mother on the other side of the plate-glass door.
Claire Collins, a woman who liked to laugh and sing, crooned, “Singin’ in the Rain,” to her adoring family.
Like the Martels, Claire’s family said they have nothing but praise for the nurses, aides and social workers.
“Our hearts go out to the staff — we don’t have a complaint with them,” she said.
Between the unanswered questions, and knowing the staff and her mother’s friends who remain are in harm’s way, “I can’t mourn her death,” Collins-Mullen said. “They need help.”
Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli said Friday that 9,094 nursing home residents have tested positive for the coronavirus in New Jersey, and 1,530 have died.
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Susan K. Livio may be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio.
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